WE ARE PEOPLE, YES?
'in union we created God' (Rustum Kozain)

we are people then, with
ordinary lives, whom
life takes by the hand on
ordinary days, like
mary and joe before,
who bore and raised god, and
enjoyed sleeping in when
day wept -- or cooking, and
sampling their cuisine off
each other's fingers, non-
mevushal red in their
jew veins, two people who
lived or died, and ached, when
one they had borne was dead.
they were people, yes, with
ordinary lives, whom
life took by the hand home.

THE GROTTO OF CHEHRABAD

There's a point between water and fire
where lies my dream, where a woman without fear
navigates the continent on her way to the sea,
a sparkle in the eye as she goes,
a tempest caught in her dress,
driving her into voyages across time.
I'm a salt man, and I watch her stoop
as with the grace of a goddess she scoops water
and lifts her cup of love,
raises the chalice that keeps us alive,
that contains all the fire and water,
all of it, and the rage of our winter,
knowing that my siblings and I live in
this hollowed out cavern we call heaven.

MORDAD
(to Ordibehesht)

The face of your father comes
through flung windows into the bedroom
of this sweltering August. In a bid
to keep us from needing the dead,
he floats toward the bed where the four of us
are sprawled, helpless golliwogs in heat.
I indulge in the visionmy father-in-law
holding my hand the night of his visit.
Overcome by decayed decades and hapless days,
the face of your father comes when I'm awake
as when I'm asleep. I wear it like a mask,
penetrate a different peace. You know,
no one's allowed to weep here.
They come out every night for a spell
to touch the world, he says, they leave behind
gravestone, garlands, wilting plants,
and long to be with you a while.

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Tag: Rethabile Masilo